Questions Group #3: Abril , Trinidad , Daniela, Marina
Group #7: Nicolas, Juan
SATURN:
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn, along with Jupiter, Uranus andNeptune, is classified as a gas giant. Together, these four planets are sometimes referred to as the Jovian, meaning "Jupiter-like", planets. Saturn is the second largest planet in the Solar System and the unique rings visible from Earth.Clearly oblate due to the rapid rotation.
The atmosphere is hydrogen, with a little helium and methane. It is the only planet that has a lower density than water. If we could find an ocean large enough, Saturn would float.
The yellow color of the clouds has bands of other colors, like Jupiter, but not so marked. About Ecuador Saturn the wind at 500 km / h.
From: http://www.astromia.com/solar/saturno.htm
Saturn is named after the Roman god Saturn, equated to the GreekCronus (the Titan father of Zeus) the BabylonianNinurta and to the HinduShani. Saturn's symbol represents the god's sickle (Unicode: ♄).
The planet Saturn is composed of hydrogen, with small proportions of helium and trace elements.[12] The interior consists of a small core of rockand ice, surrounded by a thick layer of metallic hydrogen and a gaseous outer layer. The outer atmosphere is generally bland in appearance, although long-lived features can appear. Wind speeds on Saturn can reach 1,800 km/h, significantly faster than those on Jupiter. Saturn has a planetary magnetic field intermediate in strength between that of Earth and the more powerful field around Jupiter.
Saturn has a prominent system of rings, consisting mostly of ice particles with a smaller amount of rocky debris and dust. Sixty-one knownmoons orbit the planet, not counting hundreds of "moonlets" within the rings. Titan, Saturn's largest and the Solar System's second largest moon (after Jupiter's Ganymede), is larger than the planet Mercury and is the only moon in the Solar System to possess a significant atmosphere.[13]
Carolyn Porco flies us to Saturn
Planetary scientist Carolyn Porco shows images from the Cassini voyage to Saturn, focusing on its largest moon, Titan, and on frozen Enceladus, which seems to shoot jets of ice.
The best known peculiarity of Saturn is to be surrounded by a ring system, discovered by Galileo in 1610 using one of the first telescopes. Galileo did not understand that the rings they were separated from the main body of the planet, so described them as "handles." It was the Dutchman astronomer Christiaan Huygens first to describe correctly. In 1655, not to lose his right of priority as verified their proposals, Huygens wrote an anagram that, when ordered, they formed a Latin sentence whose translation reads: "He is surrounded by a thin ring flattened, inclined to the ecliptic and untouched at any point on the planet. " The rings, which were named in the order of their discovery, the rings are known as D, C, B, A, F, G and E. Now known to contain more than 100,000 small rings, all revolving around the planet.
Saturn has two bright rings, A and B, and a smoother, C. Among them there are openings. The largest is the Cassini Division. Each main ring consists of many narrow rings. Its composition is uncertain, but we know that contain water. Could be icebergs or snowballs, mixed with dust. The origin of Saturn's rings is not known with accuracy. They could have formed from satellites that were impacts of comets and meteoroids. Four years after its discovery, Saturn's breathtaking rings remain a mystery. The elaborate structure of the rings is due to the gravity of nearby satellites, combined with the centrifugal force generated by the rotation of Saturn itself.
The particles that make up Saturn's rings have sizes ranging from microscopic measure to pieces like a house. Over time, they collect debris from comets and asteroids. If they were very old, would be dark by the accumulation of dust. The fact indicates that they are bright young. The particles that make up Saturn's rings have sizes ranging from microscopic measure to pieces like a house. Over time, they collect debris from comets and asteroids. If they were very old, would be dark by the accumulation of dust. The fact indicates that they are bright young.
Saturn has 18 satellites officially recognized and named, the largest number of satellites in the solar system. The unconfirmed satellites were found in the photographs taken by Voyager, but were not confirmed by another sighting. By 1995, the Hubble Space Telescope imaged four objects that might be new moons. Their diameters range from 20-5150 km. They consist mainly of substances lighter frosts which prevailed in the outer parts of the nebula of gas and dust that formed the solar system. The five larger inner satellites (Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione and Rhea) are more or less spherical in shape and composed mostly of water ice. The rock material may constitute up to 40% of the mass of Dione.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-164 <-- About the saturn's moon: Titan and Enceladus
(...) Scientists using the ultraviolet imaging spectrograph will be able to use the flickering light to measure whether there is molecular nitrogen in the plume. Ammonia has already been detected in the plume and scientists know heat can decompose ammonia into nitrogen molecules. Determining the amount of molecular nitrogen in the plume will give scientists clues about thermal processing in the moon's interior. Cassini will primarily be doing radio science during this pass to detect the subtle variations in the gravitational tug on the spacecraft by Titan, which is 25 percent larger in volume than the planet Mercury. Analyzing the data will help scientists learn whether Titan has a liquid ocean under its surface and get a better picture of its internal structure. The composite infrared spectrometer will also get its southernmost pass for thermal data to fill out its temperature map of the smoggy moon.
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/newsreleases/newsrelease20100329/ (here the temperature photo of the "Pac-Man eating a dot") Down there's a summary: (...) With a temperature map and images of Saturn's icy moon "Mimas", it obtained hot regions thatresemble 'Pac-Man' eating a dot. The "Pac-Man' have temperatures around 92 Kelvin (minus 294 degrees Fahrenheit). The rest of the moon was much colder, around 77 Kelvin (minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit). A smaller warm spot – the dot in Pac-Man's mouth – showed up around Herschel crater, with a temperature around 84 Kelvin (minus 310 degrees Fahrenheit). The warm spot around Herschel makes sense because tall crater walls (about 5 kilometers, or 3 miles, high) can trap heat inside the crater. But scientists were completely baffled by the sharp, V-shaped pattern. As the sun's warming rays and the vacuum of space evaporate the brighter ice, the darker material is concentrated and left behind. Gravity pulls the dark material down the crater walls, exposing fresh ice underneath. Although similar effects are seen on other moons of Saturn, the visibility of these contrasts on a moon continually re-paved with small particles from the E ring helps scientists estimate rates of change on other satellites.
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/newsreleases/newsrelease20100311/ <--- Materials inside Titan Scientists have known that Titan, Saturn's largest moon, is about half ice and half rock, but they needed the gravity data to figure out how the materials were distributed. It turns out Titan's interior is a sorbet of ice studded with rocks that probably never heated up beyond a relatively lukewarm temperature. Only in the outermost 500 kilometers (300 miles) is Titan's ice devoid of any rock, while ice and rock are mixed to various extents at greater depth.
The magnetic field of Saturn and information about Cassini-Huygens
Though Saturn's magnetic field is not as huge as Jupiter's, it is still 578 times as powerful as Earth's. Saturn, the rings, and many of the satellites lie totally within Saturn's enormous magnetosphere, the region of space in which the behavior of electrically charged particles is influenced more by Saturn's magnetic field than by the solar wind. Hubble Space Telescope images show that Saturn's polar regions have aurorae similar to Earth's. Aurorae occur when charged particles spiral into a planet's atmosphere along magnetic field lines.
=
Voyagers 1 and 2 flew by and photographed Saturn in 1981. The next chapter in our knowledge of Saturn is under way, as the Cassini- Huygens spacecraft continues its exploration of the Saturn system. The Huygens probe descended through Titan's atmosphere in January 2005, collecting data on the atmosphere and surface. Cassini will orbit Saturn more than 70 times during a four-year study of the planet and its moons, rings, and magnetosphere. Cassini-Huygens is sponsored by NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency.
Table of Contents
Group #3: Abril , Trinidad , Daniela, Marina
Group #7: Nicolas, Juan
SATURN:
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn, along with Jupiter, Uranus andNeptune, is classified as a gas giant. Together, these four planets are sometimes referred to as the Jovian, meaning "Jupiter-like", planets.
Saturn is the second largest planet in the Solar System and the unique rings visible from Earth.Clearly oblate due to the rapid rotation.
The atmosphere is hydrogen, with a little helium and methane. It is the only planet that has a lower density than water. If we could find an ocean large enough, Saturn would float.
The yellow color of the clouds has bands of other colors, like Jupiter, but not so marked. About Ecuador Saturn the wind at 500 km / h.
From: http://www.astromia.com/solar/saturno.htm
Saturn is named after the Roman god Saturn, equated to the Greek Cronus (the Titan father of Zeus) the Babylonian Ninurta and to the HinduShani. Saturn's symbol represents the god's sickle (Unicode: ♄).
The planet Saturn is composed of hydrogen, with small proportions of helium and trace elements.[12] The interior consists of a small core of rockand ice, surrounded by a thick layer of metallic hydrogen and a gaseous outer layer. The outer atmosphere is generally bland in appearance, although long-lived features can appear. Wind speeds on Saturn can reach 1,800 km/h, significantly faster than those on Jupiter. Saturn has a planetary magnetic field intermediate in strength between that of Earth and the more powerful field around Jupiter.
Saturn has a prominent system of rings, consisting mostly of ice particles with a smaller amount of rocky debris and dust. Sixty-one knownmoons orbit the planet, not counting hundreds of "moonlets" within the rings. Titan, Saturn's largest and the Solar System's second largest moon (after Jupiter's Ganymede), is larger than the planet Mercury and is the only moon in the Solar System to possess a significant atmosphere.[13]
Carolyn Porco flies us to Saturn
Planetary scientist Carolyn Porco shows images from the Cassini voyage to Saturn, focusing on its largest moon, Titan, and on frozen Enceladus, which seems to shoot jets of ice.http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/
About the rings of Saturn:
The best known peculiarity of Saturn is to be surrounded by a ring system, discovered by Galileo in 1610 using one of the first telescopes. Galileo did not understand that the rings they were separated from the main body of the planet, so described them as "handles." It was the Dutchman astronomer Christiaan Huygens first to describe correctly. In 1655, not to lose his right of priority as verified their proposals, Huygens wrote an anagram that, when ordered, they formed a Latin sentence whose translation reads: "He is surrounded by a thin ring flattened, inclined to the ecliptic and untouched at any point on the planet. " The rings, which were named in the order of their discovery, the rings are known as D, C, B, A, F, G and E. Now known to contain more than 100,000 small rings, all revolving around the planet.
Saturn has two bright rings, A and B, and a smoother, C. Among them there are openings. The largest is the Cassini Division. Each main ring consists of many narrow rings. Its composition is uncertain, but we know that contain water. Could be icebergs or snowballs, mixed with dust. The origin of Saturn's rings is not known with accuracy. They could have formed from satellites that were impacts of comets and meteoroids. Four years after its discovery, Saturn's breathtaking rings remain a mystery. The elaborate structure of the rings is due to the gravity of nearby satellites, combined with the centrifugal force generated by the rotation of Saturn itself.
The particles that make up Saturn's rings have sizes ranging from microscopic measure to pieces like a house. Over time, they collect debris from comets and asteroids. If they were very old, would be dark by the accumulation of dust. The fact indicates that they are bright young.
The particles that make up Saturn's rings have sizes ranging from microscopic measure to pieces like a house. Over time, they collect debris from comets and asteroids. If they were very old, would be dark by the accumulation of dust. The fact indicates that they are bright young.
Source: http://www.astromia.com/solar/saturno.htm
http://www.todoelsistemasolar.com.ar/saturno.htm
Moons of Saturn:
Saturn has 18 satellites officially recognized and named, the largest number of satellites in the solar system. The unconfirmed satellites were found in the photographs taken by Voyager, but were not confirmed by another sighting. By 1995, the Hubble Space Telescope imaged four objects that might be new moons. Their diameters range from 20-5150 km. They consist mainly of substances lighter frosts which prevailed in the outer parts of the nebula of gas and dust that formed the solar system. The five larger inner satellites (Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione and Rhea) are more or less spherical in shape and composed mostly of water ice. The rock material may constitute up to 40% of the mass of Dione.
Source: http://www.todoelsistemasolar.com.ar/saturno.htm
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/targetFamily/Saturn = photos of saturn and saturn's moon
http://twitter.com/cassinisaturn = Twitter of the spacecraft Cassini which is cruising around Saturn, its moons and the rings. There are many links with information and photos
(...) Scientists using the ultraviolet imaging spectrograph will be able to use the flickering light to measure whether there is molecular nitrogen in the plume. Ammonia has already been detected in the plume and scientists know heat can decompose ammonia into nitrogen molecules. Determining the amount of molecular nitrogen in the plume will give scientists clues about thermal processing in the moon's interior. Cassini will primarily be doing radio science during this pass to detect the subtle variations in the gravitational tug on the spacecraft by Titan, which is 25 percent larger in volume than the planet Mercury. Analyzing the data will help scientists learn whether Titan has a liquid ocean under its surface and get a better picture of its internal structure. The composite infrared spectrometer will also get its southernmost pass for thermal data to fill out its temperature map of the smoggy moon.
(...) With a temperature map and images of Saturn's icy moon "Mimas", it obtained hot regions that resemble 'Pac-Man' eating a dot. The "Pac-Man' have temperatures around 92 Kelvin (minus 294 degrees Fahrenheit). The rest of the moon was much colder, around 77 Kelvin (minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit). A smaller warm spot – the dot in Pac-Man's mouth – showed up around Herschel crater, with a temperature around 84 Kelvin (minus 310 degrees Fahrenheit). The warm spot around Herschel makes sense because tall crater walls (about 5 kilometers, or 3 miles, high) can trap heat inside the crater. But scientists were completely baffled by the sharp, V-shaped pattern. As the sun's warming rays and the vacuum of space evaporate the brighter ice, the darker material is concentrated and left behind. Gravity pulls the dark material down the crater walls, exposing fresh ice underneath. Although similar effects are seen on other moons of Saturn, the visibility of these contrasts on a moon continually re-paved with small particles from the E ring helps scientists estimate rates of change on other satellites.
Scientists have known that Titan, Saturn's largest moon, is about half ice and half rock, but they needed the gravity data to figure out how the materials were distributed. It turns out Titan's interior is a sorbet of ice studded with rocks that probably never heated up beyond a relatively lukewarm temperature. Only in the outermost 500 kilometers (300 miles) is Titan's ice devoid of any rock, while ice and rock are mixed to various extents at greater depth.
The magnetic field of Saturn and information about Cassini-Huygens
=http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/space/solar-system/saturn-article.html
- Though Saturn's magnetic field is not as huge as Jupiter's, it is still 578 times as powerful as Earth's. Saturn, the rings, and many of the satellites lie totally within Saturn's enormous magnetosphere, the region of space in which the behavior of electrically charged particles is influenced more by Saturn's magnetic field than by the solar wind. Hubble Space Telescope images show that Saturn's polar regions have aurorae similar to Earth's. Aurorae occur when charged particles spiral into a planet's atmosphere along magnetic field lines.
=http://nineplanets.org/saturn.html
http://www.aerospaceguide.net/p lanetsaturn.html
http://www.solarviews.com/eng/vgrsat.htm
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/02/cassini-life-extension-2017/